The Skeena River is British Columbia's second largest salmon-bearing watershed, draining an area of 54,432 square kilometers. With its headwaters in British Columbia's northern interior, the 580-kilometre-long river flows southwest to enter the ocean just south of Prince Rupert. Important tributaries within the Skeena River watershed include the Babine River, the Kispiox River, and the Bulkley River.

The Skeena River watershed is one of the most productive salmon watersheds in Canada. All six species of Pacific salmon spawn and rear in a diversity of habitats found throughout the watershed, including the Skeena River Estuary and the lower mainstem Skeena River. Salmon habitat is relatively pristine but faces increasing pressures from industrial development.

The Skeena supports Canada’s second largest salmon fishery (second only to the Fraser) and an internationally renowned recreational salmon fishery. In the mid 1960s and early 1970s, two artificial spawning channels were created in two tributaries to Babine Lake - Fulton River and Pinkut Creek - to provide more spawning habitat and boost total sockeye production. Over the past 50 years, these spawning channels have fundamentally changed the composition of salmon populations in the Skeena and eroded the salmon biodiversity of the region^[11].

Commercial fisheries have been dwindling since the 1990s. In two of the past four years (2019 and 2021), Canadian fisheries for Skeena sockeye have not operated due to low abundances^[25]. More generally, harvest rates of Skeena salmon have been curtailed since the turn of the century to also protect critically low numbers of co-migrating steelhead in the Skeena River^[26]. However, harvest for sockeye and also pink salmon in 2022 exceeded the previous 10-year average (2012-2021)^[25], which - together with above-average spawners for these species - is potentially good news for the region.

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